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- Truth is, having chickens around the stables is a good idea that I always found annoying as hell... Yeah, they clean-up dropped grain, help control rodents and bugs, in addition to producing eggs. But they can also be noisy, crap all over everything, and always decide to go into a flapping, squawking frenzy just as I'm trying to settle down a nervous horse.

- Loose birds also have a tendency to leave eggs where you can't find them, and have rather I high mortality rate in this land of coyotes and hawks.

- So I finally built a chicken tractor...



- Simple enough. Now the birds can stay out from underfoot, and can't play hide&seek with their eggs.

- So we brought home a half-dozen RIR chicks. The plastic tub is just temporary. Used to bring them into the house at night until they get a little older and the weather straightens-up a bit. I had to make a chicken-wire lid for the tubs, as the little girls are already getting big/ambitious enough that we're thinking they might hop-out.



- I keep reminding the wife that chickens are transient critters, and she shouldn't get attached. As usual, she's pretty much ignoring me.



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